There is so much confusion today about forgiveness. Many people see it as a very de-powering, wimpy thing to do that only puts you back in the clutches of those who have wounded you. NOTHING could be further from the truth! Forgiveness is NOT, regardless of what you have heard a mystical act. The results can be, but Forgiveness is a concerted act of WILL. It is a process, a path to internal freedom, because as long as you are still upset about something, you are giving your energy, your essence, your power that you need to run your life to that something else!

A teacher of mine once explained it like this: 90% percent of people give away60% of their power to another time, person or event before they even set one foot out of bed in the morning! It’s a free will universe and if you want to send your energy that you need use to run your life and your body anywhere, you can, but that’s just 40% less to live on, on a daily basis. In today’s world, we need allllll of our operating system present and up and running!

So here is a ninja chart about the act of WILL called Forgiveness. This is just my take on it, you may find your own way, but it needs to be DE-MYSTIFIED! So here goes, in everyday people words.

You have your Event:

Whatever it was, wasn’t pretty. #suddenly

Emotional Response:

You are overloaded, and that doesn’t feel good. The first thing to do is give your self permission to feel the feeling, without acting out on it. You are going to acknowledge how you feel and realize that you are justified. Because FEELINGS ARE. You can’t unfeel something. The gift this gives you is the right to feel them. Personal Validation of “Hey, that hurt!”

Shoes Response:

This is where you metaphorically put yourself in the other guy’s shoes for a moment and IMAGINE where they are coming from. It is a mind experiment. It opens up your viewpoint and allows you to see/speculate on the event from another perspective and get a wider viewpoint. The gift this gives you is some empathy practice WITHOUT devaluing your emotional experience of the event.

Reframe:

When an artist needs a new perspective on an old painting, they usually put it in a new ‘frame’ of reference… When you have two valid viewpoints with which to look at something you have a way to ask questions about what happened. You can see that maybe this extra information will let you know something about yourself you never realized before. This gift in this is the lesson about you, and how it widens the choices available in your actions the next time, or shows you that you are more than you thought you were.

Soul Lesson:

These soul lessons are about the bigger repeating (sometimes) patterns in your life. Have you ever asked yourself “Why does this always happen to me this way?” That’s a soul lesson knocking on the door to your recognition saying, “Let me in or I’m gonna kick your butt again!!!!” Usually if an event is big enough to need to be forgiven, it’s a major lesson, and it will repeat till you get why it is in your life for you and only you, so in your reframe you will realize the jist of that lesson and remember… When you do that well enough, karma which is simply your teacher graduates you on to other things. So this is Ninja Skill #2.

Hope it helps. I’ve been practicing all my life and there is still MUCH to be learned. But I’ve managed pretty well, and I kind of like the person I’ve become and so I am grateful to Karma for all of its lessons. Well, sorta…..